A survey carried out by UK divorce website Divorce-Online in December 2009 found that 20% of behaviour petitions contained the word “Facebook.”.
A follow up survey in December 2011 has found that number has increased alarmingly during 2011 to 33% of behaviour petitions have been found to contain Facebook in the behaviour allegations. 5000 petitions were queried as in the 2009 sample.
The most common reasons where Facebook was used in the allegations were once again relating to spouses behaviour with the opposite sex, but also spouses now using Facebook to make comments about their exes once they had separated and using their public walls as weapons in their divorce battle.
Top three reasons.
1. Inappropriate messages to members of the opposite sex.
2. Separated spouses posting comments about each other.
3. Facebook friends reporting spouse’s behaviour.
Twitter only appeared in 20 petitions as part of the behaviour allegations, and again it was the use of Twitter as a tool to make comments about exes that featured in most tweets.
Mark Keenan the spokesman for Divorce-Online said “Social networking has become the primary tool for communicating with friends and is taking over from text and e-mail in my opinion. If someone wants to have an affair or flirt with the opposite sex then the easiest place to do it. Also the use of Facebook to make comments about ex partners to friends has become extremely common with both sides using Facebook to vent their grievances against each other. People need to be careful what they put on Facebook as the courts are now seeing a lot more evidence being introduced from people’s walls and posts in disputes over finances and children.”
